Accelerating Content Creation: 5 Ways Marketers Can Speed Up the Process

5 Ways Marketers Can Speed Up Content Creation:

As a marketer, you know that high-quality, engaging content is crucial for attracting and retaining customers. But between ideation, writing, editing, approvals and more, creating that content can be time-consuming. Speeding up your content creation process enables you to get more content out faster. This guide will explore five key ways you can accelerate content creation. We'll look at leveraging AI writing tools, implementing an automated approval workflow, repurposing existing assets, building a content calendar, and using templates. With tips on platforms like Canva, Hootsuite and SwiftApprove, you'll be able to create more content that resonates with your audience, faster.

Streamline Your Content Creation Process

Invest in Content Creation Tools

To accelerate content creation, invest in tools that simplify and speed up the process. An example of this includes using a platform like Canva, which allows you to easily design social media graphics, presentations, and other visuals. Another example is Hootsuite, which lets you schedule and publish social media content in advance. Both these tools help advance the content creation process.

Create Content Templates

Develop templates for frequently published content like blog posts, social media posts, or emails. By preparing templates in advance with your brand standards, writers can quickly produce new content by inserting details. For example, create blog post templates with headings, formatting, and spacing in place so writers can focus on the content.

Assign Clear Responsibilities

Ensure content creation responsibilities are clearly outlined to avoid duplication of efforts or dropped tasks. Assign owners for content types like blog posts, social media, or resource creation. Provide team members with detailed briefs articulating content objectives, key messages, target audience, and other guidelines. With clear direction, individuals can work efficiently without constant oversight or check-ins.

Set Realistic Deadlines

Ambitious deadlines often lead to rushed, lower-quality work. Set reasonable deadlines for content creation that account for research, writing, reviewing, and revising. For large content projects, break the work into milestones with deadlines to keep progress on track without overburdening the team. Adjust deadlines as needed if unforeseen challenges emerge.

Review and Revise Content

Allow adequate time for reviewing, providing feedback, and revising content before publishing. Use a streamlined approval tool like SwiftApprove to quickly review content, suggest changes directly within the document, and instantly notify writers of required revisions. With an optimized review process, you can reduce review times while maintaining high-quality standards. Continuously improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your content creation workflow is key to scaling your content production.

Leverage Content Creation Tools

In today's fast-paced marketing world, creating visual content quickly is essential. Tools like Canva and Hootsuite empower marketers to design social media graphics, blog images, and more in just a few clicks.

Canva is a popular design tool that provides templates for creating social media posts, blog graphics, presentations, and more. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, you can create professional designs in minutes without needing design experience.

Hootsuite is a social media management platform that also allows you to create social media content. In addition to scheduling posts, you can design graphics right within Hootsuite using their image editor. They offer templates for the most popular social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Once you've designed your graphic, you can instantly schedule it to the appropriate social channels.

Other useful tools for accelerating content creation include:

• SwiftApprove: Streamlines the content approval process allowing for quicker review and feedback cycles.  This speeds up teams and shortens the review cycle.

• Adobe Spark: Enables you to create social media graphics, short videos, and web stories in minutes. They offer predefined templates and styles to choose from.

• Pablo by Buffer: Allows you to create completely customized social media graphics in just a few clicks. They have templates for all major social networks.

By leveraging intuitive design tools and streamlining internal processes, marketers can publish more content faster while still maintaining high quality. In today's world of marketing, speed and consistency are key. The right tools can help make that possible.

Collaborate Across Teams to Accelerate Content Creation

Creating a steady stream of high-quality content requires cooperation between groups within an organization. By promoting collaboration among teams, marketers can accelerate the content creation process.

Use Shared Content Tools

Equipping teams with collaborative tools streamlines the creative process. Cloud-based tools like Google Docs allow multiple users to access and edit content in real-time. This helps enable cross-team collaboration with the entire content lifecycle housed in one place. This collaboration tool helps build a cohesive team and boosts creativity.

Provide Ongoing Feedback

Continuous feedback and communication are essential for productive collaboration. Share updates on new content, get input on works in progress, and discuss what’s working well or needs improvement. Regular check-ins, meetings, and reviews create opportunities for feedback and help keep teams accountable, focused, and moving in the right direction to achieve content goals.

Fostering cooperation between teams unlocks the potential for creating content at scale. By tapping into diverse expertise, forming cross-functional groups, utilizing shared tools, and providing ongoing feedback, marketers can accelerate the content development process.

Repurpose Existing Content to Quickly Produce New Assets
Revisit Your Content Library

The content you’ve already created is a goldmine for repurposing. Look through your archive of blog posts, social media posts, emails, and other assets. Chances are, some of that evergreen content can be reimagined and republished in a different format to reach new audiences. For example, you can turn a long-form blog post into a video script or podcast episode. Or, compile a few blog posts on a related theme into an ebook.

Refresh and Update

Some content may need minor updates to be relevant for today. Review any facts, statistics, or examples in the content to make sure they’re still accurate and up to date. You may also want to freshen up the overall tone and messaging to align with your current brand voice. Make these quick updates, and your evergreen content will be ready to republish.

Repackage for Different Channels

The possibilities for repurposing content across channels are endless. Some ideas include:

• Turn a blog post into a social media post for platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter. Keep it under 280 characters and include an eye-catching image and link to the full blog post.

• Create an infographic based on statistics, data points, or key takeaways from a research report or long-form article. Infographics are highly shareable on social media.

• Film a short video summarizing a blog post or article. Even a 30 to 60 second explainer video can help bring your content to life in a new engaging format.

• Develop a slide presentation from an in-depth report or blog post. Share the presentation on platforms like SlideShare or include it in an email newsletter.

• Record an audio version of a blog post to publish as a podcast episode. Some podcast platforms now allow you to embed audio directly into blog posts for an immersive experience.

Repurposing content into multiple formats and distributing it across various channels is an efficient way to maximize your content efforts and reach new audiences.

Implement a Content Approval Tool to Speed Up Review and Publication

Simplify the Review Process

A content approval tool like SwiftApprove streamlines the review process by allowing you to instantly send content to reviewers and receive feedback directly over the content. This eliminates the need for downloading files, making edits, and re-uploading new versions. Reviewers can simply add comments and suggest changes right in the tool. Once all feedback has been addressed, the content can be instantly approved and published. This simplified process shortens review cycles and accelerates content creation.

Reduce Version Confusion

When content is passed back and forth between creators and reviewers, it can be easy to lose track of which version is the most up-to-date. A content approval tool maintains version history so you always know you're working on the latest draft. All previous versions are saved in case you need to revert to an earlier edit. This eliminates confusion and wasted effort, speeding up the review process.

Streamline Collaboration

A content approval tool facilitates seamless collaboration between creators, reviewers, and approvers. Everyone has visibility into the review and approval process, and knows exactly where any content stands in the workflow at any given time. This level of transparency and accountability helps identify and resolve any bottlenecks, leading to a quicker turnaround of content.

Automate Reminders and Notifications

Certain Cloud-based software can automatically send reminders to reviewers and approvers about pending content awaiting their feedback or approval. This helps prevent content from getting stuck in the review cycle due to forgotten or missed deadlines. The tools can also notify all stakeholders once content has been fully approved. These automated notifications create efficiencies that accelerate the content creation and approval process.

Using a dedicated content approval tool introduces process improvements and time-saving functionality for marketing teams. By simplifying review, reducing confusion, streamlining collaboration, and automating notifications, brands and agencies can speed up their content creation and get more high-quality content in front of their audiences.

Conclusion

You now have a roadmap to build an efficient content creation process that enables your team to develop more content faster. By implementing tools like Canva and Hootsuite and automating tedious tasks, you empower your marketers to focus on strategy and ideation. An accelerated workflow leads to more experiments, better results, and higher performance. Foster a culture of innovation and collaboration to unlock your team's full potential. With the right systems and mindset, your content will reach more audiences and drive greater impact for the business. The faster you can turn ideas into stories, the quicker you'll see returns. It's time to hit the gas on content creation.